A Plague Tale: Requiem | Motor Accessibility Video

A Plague Tale: Requiem [PEGI 18] is a third-person action-adventure game. It is the sequel to 2019’s A Plague Tale: Innocence, and continues the story of Amicia and Hugo. The game is available on Xbox Series consoles, PlayStation 5, PC and also Nintendo Switch via the cloud.

The game features a range of different gameplay elements, including stealth, open combat, puzzles, boss battles, and sections where you have to sprint as the rats chase Amicia and destroy the environment around her. The game requires you to work out ways to use the environment to dispose of enemies and also as a way to navigate around the rats. Ammunition can be scarce and attacking enemies without caution can often result in failure. 

The gameplay controls require the use of the inputs on the whole of the controller, but there are a range of settings that can potentially make the game a more accessible experience for some players. In this video, we will be looking at the available options related to the motor accessibility of the game. All footage is captured on an Xbox Series S.

Settings > General Settings

The settings can be accessed either at the main menu, or by pausing the game and scrolling down to ‘Settings’. First, we will have a look at the ‘General’ settings. There are three difficulty settings, ranging from ‘Narrative’, which focusses on the story and exploration, ‘Normal’ which is the default setting, and aims to create a balance between experiencing the adventure and the in-game challenges, and ‘Hard’, which is the most difficult setting. Changing the difficulty also changes some of the other settings, such as ‘Help frequency’.

‘Help frequency’ adjusts the time it takes for the game to offer a helpful tip if it thinks you might be unsure how to progress from a certain area. The settings range from ‘Short’, ‘Normal’ (which is default) to ‘Long’. You can also switch this setting off entirely.

It is possible to switch controller vibration from ‘Normal’, to ‘Low’ to ‘Off’. It is also possible to reduce camera movement and shaking by switching ‘Steady Camera’ to ‘On’.

There are three HUD presets. ‘Standard’ is the default setting, which displays all of the in-game indicators and interfaces displayed. ‘Immersive’ switches most of these settings off, and the developer suggests that this means that players will need to play with more attention. There is also the option to select ‘Custom’, which means that the player can decide which of the HUD options they wish to have switched on or off.

Settings > Gameplay Settings

Moving across to the ‘Gameplay’ settings, there are a range of options that could be helpful for some players.

The first option is ‘Stick Swap’. The standard controls mean that Left Stick controls player movement and Right Stick controls the camera, and also controls aiming. Switching this option to ‘Yes’ reverses the sticks, meaning that Left Stick is for camera and aiming, and Right Stick is for movement.

It is possible to invert the camera for both the horizontal and vertical axis.

‘Camera Sensitivity’ and ‘Aiming Sensitivity’ can be altered separately. So, it would be possible to have the ‘Aiming Sensitivity’ set to maximum, with the ‘Camera Sensitivity’ set to a lower sensitivity, if that is helpful.

‘Movement Sensitivity’ can be adjusted. On the highest levels of sensitivity, you don’t need to move the analog stick all the way to get Amicia to move at her fastest speed. Higher sensitivity settings might be helpful for those who find moving the stick all the way to the edge difficult, whereas lower sensitivity settings might help those who find they sometimes accidentally move the stick, as it takes the full movement of the stick to get Amicia to move at all.

‘Aim Assist’ is usually set to ‘Normal’. This means that the aiming reticule slows down when near to an enemy, to make it easier to target them. This can be changed to ‘Low’.

‘Automatic Timed Inputs’ removes all quick time events, by completing these parts automatically.  

‘Automatic Quick Interactions’ removes the need to act under time pressure, as the game will complete these sequences automatically.

Switching on ‘Invincible Mode’ means that Amicia can no longer be harmed or killed by human enemies. However, environmental dangers such as fire or the rats can still hurt or kill her. 

There are a range of settings to enable players to toggle certain button holds. So, rather than holding the button down, you can tap the button once to start holding, and tap it again to stop.

‘Special Interactions’ include certain puzzles, such as turning cranks to open up the next area of the game. Usually, you have to hold the button down, but this can be set to a press.

 By default, sprinting requires you to hold a button down, but this can be set to a press. You do still need to keep pushing the movement analog stick forwards to move.

You can set the aim button to be a press, so that you don’t have to keep the button held down.

You generally have to hold a button down to open the radial menu to swap weapons, or swap the ammo being used in that weapon. You can set this to a button press.

 At some points during the game, you have to give commands or orders, to your allies. When looking towards the items that you want your allies to use, for example, then you have to hold down the required button when the item is highlighted, and then give your allies the commands by pressing another button. You can set it so that the button hold changes to a press.  

 With the menu open, you have to hold a button down to craft the specific type of ammunition that you want to use. You can change the crafting button to a press. By setting the weapon menu to a press as well, you wouldn’t need to hold down any buttons to craft.

Settings > Controls Settings

The game also has button remapping options. As with the previous settings, these can be accessed either at the main menu or by pausing the game and going to settings. Scroll across to ‘Controls’, and you can swap around many of the button presses. For example, here on Xbox, we press the A button to open up the option to remap vault and climb. Now, we press the button that we want to map it to. So, Left Stick Click will now act as vault and climb. It is not possible to map button presses to joystick directions, or vice versa.

We hope that you found this video helpful. If you have any questions about the motor accessibility of this game, then please contact SpecialEffect.

For game developers who are interested in more video examples of how developers have improved the motor accessibility of their games, please visit the SpecialEffect DevKit at specialffectdevkit.info.